Cold Shower
by ittybittymattycommittee
Summary: Something unexpected happens after football practice that brings Artie Abrams and Sam Evans closer, literally.   Was written as a friendship fic, but could easily be read as the start of something romantic, hence the slightly suggestive title of the fic.
1. Chapter 1

As athletic as Sam Evans had always been, he really didn't like running laps. It felt so aimless, like there was no purpose in it at all, other than using it to collectively punish your football team for someone shoving a kid in a dumpster right in front of their coach's face, which was exactly what coach Beiste was doing to her football team right now.

However, working out 6 days a week had its obvious advantages, Sam was quickly reminded of, as he was already sprinting to finish his final lap, finally being able to take the shower he'd been dying to take since he was sandwiched between Azimio and one of his trusty and equally sweaty minions half an hour ago.

As he jogged past coach Beiste, who gave him the thumbs up to signal that he was indeed done for the day, he broke into an unexpected smile, realizing that it was Friday, knowing very well what that meant. Since a couple of weeks ago, when he'd gotten into a surprisingly heated discussion with one of his closest friends, Artie Abrams, about which Zelda game was the most groundbreaking one, Fridays had become gaming night at Artie's place.

Artie, like Sam, was both a member of the football team and the glee club, which only proved to strengthen the bond the two guys had already began to form since first meeting each other, realizing how much they had in common, their nerdy personalities being the main thing.

Since he'd promised coach Beiste to go bench pressing in the gym before he went home for the day, Artie had been excused early from football practice, when his team mates were running laps. As Sam pushed the door to the boys locker room open, he reckoned Artie would be finishing up in the gym right about the same time, contemplating on whether he should go and meet up with him before his long anticipated shower, when he heard an unexpected noise coming from said showers, startling him a little since he knew the other guys were like five laps behind him when he'd left the field.

Not knowing what to expect at all, but eager to find out, he quietly rounded the corner, not wanting to intrude if it was just someone taking a shower. He knew from first hand experience with a certain Kurt Hummel that things like that could get a little awkward, especially between guys less open-minded as himself when it came to sexuality and all of that stuff.

What he found when his eyes scanned the showers for something or someone that noise had come from was much worse than he'd imagined. Propped up against the wall of the last shower stall was a fully clothed, soaking wet Artie, shivering like a leaf.

"God, Artie!", Sam exclaimed as he threw himself onto his knees to get Artie out of his heavy shoulder pads. As he grabbed his friend across the shoulders, turning him around to have Artie's back against his own chest to easier pull the pads off without throwing off his friend's balance and sending him face first to the floor, he realized Artie shouldn't still have his football gear on if he'd just come back from the gym.

"What happened?", he questioned anxiously. "Who did this?"

His voice shaking, sounding slightly out of breath, Artie explained. "Got out of practice...", he stopped to draw a shallow breath. "Cornered by hockey team...", another quick intake of oxygen. "Easy target...", Artie finished, slumping into Sam's chest as he'd finally managed to get the shoulder pads completely off and threw them across the room. The difficulty Artie had just breathing and how he was uncharacteristically speaking in short sentence fragments, probably from exhaustion, worried Sam a great deal. He couldn't find any indication that the hockey jerks had beat his friend up, but he imagined Artie would've put up quite a fight trying to wrestle his way out of someone's grip as they were practically drowning him.

"Hey. Perhaps we should find someone, like the nurse or something. You don't seem alright to me.", Sam voiced his worry, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he felt Artie tense up and try to push his way from Sam, with little success. He seemed all out of energy, 100 % exhausted, so when Sam seized him around the waist as he made his futile attempt to escape, there wasn't much more he could do than just let out a short and defeated sigh.

"Told you you don't look well, Artie.", Sam informed him, with only a hint of smugness in his tone from being right, as he repositioned his arms to Artie's shoulders, not convinced the slightest that Artie would be fine on his own, but not wanting to make him uncomfortable either by having his arms wrapped around his waist. They already looked a bit too intimate, Artie collapsed into Sam's strong arms on the floor, now once again leaning fully into Sam's chest.

Letting his mind quickly revisit the football practice, trying to come up with a plan for what to do next, he remembered Mike not being too many laps behind him, crossing his fingers for one of their fellow glee clubbers to be the one to find him and Artie. As worried as he was about Artie right now, he knew how many slushies they'd have to take between the two of them if one of their other team mates were to find the pair, soaking wet, in each other's arms on the floor of the locker room showers.

"I'm sorry, Artie", he began, as he tried to comfort his friend while they waited for help. "I think we're gonna have to cancel our gaming night." He'd be lying if he said he wasn't disappointed, but right now, all he cared about was someone finding the boys, and finally getting Artie back to his normal body temperature. The way he was shaking was really unsettling.

"But we could always reschedule, if you're up for it?", he tried to lighten the mood a little, pleased to hear Artie let out a strained chuckle as a response.

"Sounds... like a plan...", Artie forced out between breaths. "Gonna kick... your ass..."

"You're thinking I'll go easy on you", Sam replied with a laugh and a smile. "You wish."


	2. Chapter 2

About ten minutes had gone by, Sam figured, since the moment he had found Artie in the locker room showers, and he was growing more and more concerned with each minute passing.

Artie's breathing was not slowing down, making it straining for him just to talk, and what had started off as mild shivering had rapidly grown into his entire upper body shaking rather violently in a futile attempt to warm up. With every increase in intensity of the shakes, Sam felt himself clutching Artie tighter and tighter where he held him in his arms, as if he could somehow magically transfer all of his own bodily heat to him if he squeezed themselves together hard enough.

As Artie winced a little, Sam immediately loosened his grip on him, realizing that in his current state of growing panic, he might be doing more harm than good to the fragile body he was trying to protect from any further harm. He was desperate to if not get the temperature of his body up, then at least keep it from dropping any lower.

Sam quickly weighed his two options in his mind: he could either leave Artie on the floor as he ran for help, or he could stay with him and hope that help would somehow find them. More than a little reluctant to loosen his grip around his friend's waist any more than he just had, he figured his only real option was to sit there and wait for someone in the football team to be done with practice and find them. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why no-one hadn't already stumbled in through the doors, sweaty and exhausted from practice, but he figured the guys had probably gotten themselves into trouble again or something, getting punished by doing even more laps than they'd already been forced to run.

Never before in his life had he found the expression "Speak of the devil" less appropriate to his situation than in that very moment. Sure, there was a certain eerie coincidence between thinking about someone bursting in through the locker room doors at the same moment he actually heard someone doing it, but the slender Asian boy coming into view was as far from the devil as people came. It was like seeing a real-life angel, sent down to Earth to personally answer Sam's prayers. Not wasting one second, he called out for rescue.

"Mike!", Sam shouted, probably a little louder than necessary, seeing as the showers were only separated by a short distance from the door. He figured he could blame his uncharacteristic shouting on his current panicky state.

Mike's response was immediate, to Sam's relief. As soon as he had whipped his head around towards the shouting boy in the showers, he broke out into a run, almost before even registering who it actually was.

In mere seconds, Mike was in front of the boys, kneeling down on the drenched floor. His expression was a mixture of worry and confusion, but before he could ask anything, Sam was quick to briefly explain the situation to him, or at least try to explain it the best that he could, as he was growing more and more hysterical.

"They nearly drowned him in the showers, and now he's really, really cold, and I can't get him warmer, and-", Sam was speaking really fast and not very clearly, so Mike quickly interrupted him.

"Wait, slow down. Who did this to Artie?", Mike said as he looked down at the boy Sam was now clinging on to for dear life, as if both his and Artie's lives depended on it.

"The damned Hockey team!", he hissed, making "Hockey team" sound like a very foul curse.

"Artie", Mike unintentionally changed both topic and the person he was addressing. Artie didn't bother responding to his name, as he was currently focusing all his attention on trying to slow down his breathing, to very little success. Mike laid a hand on his shoulder. "Hang tight while I get Coach Beiste, ok?"

That stirred a reaction within Artie, and Sam could feel him stiffen up in his grip.

"No", he began, pausing between every word for air. "Just... find... my chair", he managed to get out. If there was one thing Artie had always despised, it was the feeling of helplessness, and he never felt more vulnerable or helpless than without his wheelchair. He didn't care if he was feeling like he had just been immersed in liquid nitrogen. He didn't want anyone else to see him out of the chair like this, especially not in the semi-erotic death grip Sam was currently holding him in.

"What?", Sam exclaimed, practically straight into Artie's ear. "Are you crazy? Help is here! You're taking it, now!" The stern demand lost much of its power with the shaky voice it was uttered in. Artie acted like he hadn't even heard it, though it would have been pretty hard for him to miss. He was going to stand his ground, not caring if it cost him every single ounce of strength he had left.

"First... the chair... then... the Beiste", Artie croaked out as he locked eyes with the boy in front of him, looking as serious as Mike had ever seen him. Figuring there was no use in arguing, that it was just a waste of time trying to get Artie to co-operate, he gave in to the compromise.

"Ok", Mike sighed in defeat, trying to avoid Sam's baffled expression as he quickly got to his feet. "But then we're getting help, whether you want it or not."

Sam didn't even have time to fight Mike on the matter before he was out in the locker room, searching around for Artie's chair. Luckily, it didn't take more than a couple of seconds for the missing item to be found, seeing as it was balanced on top of the far-end lockers, sticking out from its position like a sore thumb.

"Found it!", Mike exclaimed as he removed it from its place and jogged with it towards the showers, only slowing down on the wet tile floor, not wanting to add his unconscious body to the list of things for Sam to panic over.

Positioning it where he had just been sitting moments earlier, he snapped the breaks on the wheelchair into place and bent down to find a good position for his arms, getting ready to lift Artie from the ground. But before he had even touched him, there was resistance.

"No!... I... can", Artie insisted in between rapid breaths, as he fidgeted around in Sam's arms, actually managing to free himself from his grip, only to start tumbling forwards. With reflexes best described as ninja-like, Mike seized him well before his impending face-plant.

"No. You can't, Artie." Before he could even register what was going on, he was being scooped up into Mike's strong arms and placed in the familiar seat of his chair. However, as he had just used up every bit of strength left in his body, Mike had to help him from falling out of it with two steady hands, one on each of Artie's shoulders.

Sam had gotten behind him, holding on to the handles of the wheelchair to steady himself on his shaky feet. As nice as it was, having people fretting over him, Artie really didn't like seeing Sam in his current state. He didn't seem to handle stress very well at all. Mike on the other hand, didn't seem half as panicked, which was very relieving. As much as Sam had made him feel safe in his arms and all of that, he didn't really calm Artie down much.

Mike's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Wow. You look really pale.", Mike stated as he examined Artie closer, immediately getting into the feeling of being his private doctor. Like the straight A student he was, he knew his fair share of biology, and human anatomy was something that had always fascinated him a great deal. This proved to come in very handy in situations like this one, Mike thought to himself. First of all, he had to calm the patient down, even thought in this case, it seemed like it was Sam needing to be calmed down, not Artie. He had read somewhere that it was good to try distracting the patient from their pain by giving them something to focus on, and in this case, it was going to have to be Mike's voice.

"Paleness. Shivering", he started out, making a mental list of Artie's symptoms, though immediately having to stop to explain himself as he met the confused gaze he had felt Sam give him.

"My dad always wanted me to become a doctor." With this brief and very lacking background story to his apparent medical expertise, Mike was quick to get back to business, bringing his hand up to Artie's forehead to feel his temperature.

"Very cold", he said in a serious tone. Artie attempted to swat away his hand, but barely managed to make his arm twitch, going unnoticed with all the shivering.

"Stop", he panted out. "I'm... fine."

Sam suddenly made himself heard for the first time in minutes, scoffing loudly at Artie.

"Rapid breathing", Mike added after Artie's valiant attempt at saying an entire phrase without pausing for air. With the situation in mind, which was Artie having been hosed down in what appeared to be freezing cold water, it wasn't a hard diagnose to make, even for an untrained pretend-doctor like Mike.

"My guess is he's got hypothermia.", he said to Sam with a frown. "It basically means his body temperature is way colder than it should be.", he explained himself when he saw Sam looking like a living breathing question mark, apparently unfamiliar with the term.

He once again lowered his gaze to meet Artie's currently pretty vacant one, addressing him now instead of Sam.

"Because of your accident, your body can't regulate its temperature like normal, right?" Something stirred to life in Artie's eyes as he looked at Mike in disbelief, wondering when he had been planning on telling him he was a certifiable expert on hypothermia and spinal cord injuries.

"Like I said, my dad has pretty much forced the whole doctor thing down my throat." he explained once again. "But I'm right, right?", he asked Artie.

"Right", Artie responded in a strained voice, feeling another case of the mad shivers coming his way.

"Ok. I'd say you'll be fine as long as we get you to a doctor, _a real doctor_.", Mike added as he saw Sam raise an eyebrow at him.

Handing over the responsibility of keeping Artie in an upright position to Sam, he quickly made his way out the door towards the football field.

Little to his knowledge, Sam was correct in guessing that someone, namely the school's self-proclaimed king of pranks, Puck himself, had gotten the rest of the team into trouble yet again. This time, his actions had punished the team not only with the nightmare of doing even more laps around the field, but also the horror of being subject to a rather lengthy and angry lecture from Coach Bieste about the importance of focusing and growing up, if they wanted to become "real" football players after graduating.

As the door slammed shut, Sam was once again left alone in the locker room with Artie, and after Mike's impressive display of medical knowledge, he actually felt himself calm down just a bit. In his mind, he was clinging on to Mike's promise that Artie would be fine, almost repeating the words to himself as a mantra. He wanted, no, he needed Artie to be ok, and those words seemed like the only substantial proof he had right now that his best friend wasn't about to be cradled in his arms as he drew his last breath, just like in the movies.

Keeping one of his hands on him to steady Artie in his chair, he brought the other one to the boys chin, tilting it upwards slowly, until he had established eye-contact with a pair of brilliantly blue eyes that sadly had nothing but sheer exhaustion in them right now.

"You'll be fine.", Sam promised, feeling a desperate need to assure both Artie and himself of that.

"Yeah?", Artie's voice was barely a whisper now, but something had lit up inside of him when Sam tried to comfort him.

"Yeah", Sam answered, and trying to lighten the serious mood just a little, now that he didn't feel like his heart was beating a thousand beats per minute at the thought of loosing Artie, he added:

"Doctor Chang and his trusty Nurse Evans are gonna make sure of that."


End file.
